I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

The Problem Is That Women Just Don't Ask For It

This gender pay gap thing: as I’ve said before I seriously doubt that for those entering the job market now that direct discrimination makes any difference at all to their pay. I’m sure it used to but I do think that’s something that has largely been conquered.

But we do still see a gender pay gap in many places. Part of this is that, as again I’ve said before, we’ve not so much got a gender pay gap as we have a motherhood pay gap. But there are parts of it all that really are the results of gendered behaviour.

You see, on the matter of pay, it really can be that the women just don’t ask for it:

Our process, despite the pay gap, is identical for men and women. We start with phone interviews, and move into a personal and technical interview. Once a candidate passes both of those, we start salary negotiations. This is where the women seem to come in last.

The reason they don’t keep up, from where I sit, is simple. Often, a woman will enter the salary negotiation phase and I’ll tell them a number will be sent to them in a couple days. Usually we start around $45k for an entry level position. 50% to 60% of the women I interview simply take this offer. It’s insane, I already know I can get authorization for more if you simply refuse. Inversely, almost 90% of the men I interview immediately ask for more upon getting the offer.

Yes, of course, that is anecdote not data. But gather enough such anecdotes and they do become data as a number of research papers have shown on exactly this point.

The interesting point though is just what do we do about it all? Which probably will be influenced by what you think causes this disparity in reactions to pay offers. If it’s something innate to women then I’m not quite sure what can be done. If, as I think is more likely, it’s simply that this generation of women is pretty much the first to be competing on equal terms (education levels etc) with men and thus haven’t quite internalised the rules of engagement with employers then that’s something that will pretty much sort itself out.

Although obviously it will do so faster if people start teaching these young women those rules of this game. Like the excellent little piece by my colleague on this very point to the side there.

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It’s probably psychology, if we dare suggest there are any differences between women and men whatsoever other than the configuration of reproductive organs.

The more expensive people in the office are always at higher risk of being fired, and men are generally apt to take higher risks than women. Merely asking for a higher starting salary incurs the risk that the employer will consider you too expensive to start with. So as demanding a lower salary with increased probability of getting the job in the first place and not getting kicked out of it in hard times is entirely consistent with what we know about how men and women behave.

We definitely need to get away from the idea that this is some huge sexist conspiracy. If women are more profitable hires because, averaged out, they want less money, we would see the most successful companies filling all the negotiable-salary jobs with women.

Thanks for including my post here. Recent research by Catalyst shows that women who do “ask for it” are often not rewarded at all or as well as their male peers.

The answer to this problem is negotiation training, particularly training that is nested within the cultural context in which women negotiate – a context in which self-serving and self-promotion is too often seen as a gender boundary violation and for which many women are “punished” by being scorned and ridiculed as well as by being denied raises, bonuses and promotions.

We think smart, well-trained women can overcome these obstacles and that smart businesses will recognize that women who are assertive on their own behalves will be just as assertive on behalf of their employers.

Again, thanks for raising this important issue and, of course, for including me in the conversation. Much appreciated!